The Moon Will Provide
by QuickSilverFox3
Summary: Fenrir Greyback wakes following a successful transformation and hunt, mind turning to the next one [Character Study]


**House/Team: Lions**

**Class Subject: Care of Magical Creatures**

**Category: Standard**

**Prompt: [character] Fenrir Greyback**

**Wordcount: 1806**

Had they somehow known, his parents? Did they have a sense of what he would become, not just a werewolf but the most feared werewolf in memory?

Fenrir settled into the comfortable warmth between sleep and wakefulness. The morning dew was damp in his hair and beard and the woods beyond the den was still and silent. They had hunted well last night.

Memories from his time as a werewolf were hazy, animal instincts clashing with the film of human emotion. He should be appalled at what he did as a beast, sickened by even the faded memory of flesh tearing beneath his teeth, blood coating his mouth and drying in his fur. But it was exhilarating. Fenrir had never felt more alive than when he was so close to dying.

The change had washed over him like a wave, and he gladly went under sinking into the depths. The newer werewolves tried to fight the change, tried to push back against the unstoppable might of an ocean. It never worked.

It only prolonged the pain, the agony of bones snapping and reforming, of muscles tearing and reshaping in a manner that was never intended. The nerves didn't deadened with the change, instead remaining fully formed and active, pain firing like electricity until the very end.

It was agony, left him gasping for breath at the end, every nerve firing, head spinning and the gentle breeze like fire on newly formed skin.

Fenrir raised himself onto his back legs and howled at the sky, hearing his pack follow suit. They had survived another month, the curse hadn't killed them yet, and so they screamed their defiance to the sky.

It was a chilling song, layered and complex beyond human understanding. Fenrir couldn't remember what was said during the song, what guidance Mother Moon offered to her chosen children, but the outcome was always the same.

It was time to hunt.

There were no children to turn, not this night.

Fenrir growled in his dozing state, lip curling as he recalled the man's words.

'_Soulless, evil, deserving nothing but death._'

The noise rumbled around the small cavern like ripples in a pool, werewolves half waking up at his unintentional signal before they settled back down.

Lyall Lupin would regret his words.

The man was so small, accent rising and falling along the fateful words, cheeks red with anger as his fellows had goaded him, belittled him. He would have made a good werewolf, able to temper his natural aggression until it was needed. But then he had to say _that._

Fenrir knew what Lyall Lupin would do. He knew what frightened parents did, had studied his chosen quarry well over the years.

He was old now, silver in his hair matching his name. He was experienced in the hunt.

For the first month, they would expect an attack. Doors would be locked and warded, if they were magic. They may even leave and go to relatives, flee the country under the guise of a holiday, running like frightened rabbits, tail between their legs.

But fears never seemed as bad under the harsh light of day. The lack of reprisal would make them wonder, would make them think they had outsmarted their pursuer. They would relax slightly, too blind to see the danger just above their heads.

The second month, the second turn of the moon, the old fears emerged. But they were tarnished, dulled by a month of nothing, no reprisals, no sightings nearby. It was easy enough to send a few younger members of the pack away, to roll in dust until their fur gleamed silver in the moonlight and to attack travellers far away from Fenrir's target.

It calmed his quarry.

"Maybe he has forgotten us. Maybe he didn't realise. Maybe he has been scared off," they would say, parents slowly relaxing terrified claws on their child.

The third moon. The third month was when he would strike. Wards were relaxed, parents slept peacefully. Doors were still locked, barriers still created - there was a war on after all - but less.

And that was when he would strike.

Lyall Lupin was terrified for his child. He was still watching for Fenrir. But Fenrir was patient. He could wait, he would wait.

The hunt of last night did little to quell the bloodlust lingering just beneath his skin. His jaws ached to lock around human flesh, to bite down and hold on until the curse took. Then the child would be his, marked by him and only his forever.

The pack could sense his rage in his song, incensed by having to wait another turn of the moon before he would claim his tribute. They followed him through the woods, dirt so deeply embedded in the cracks of his palms, beneath his nails, curled and yellowing.

They were wolves. And they would hunt.

Deer were not as satisfying as humans. They lacked the ability to truly fight back, no magic crackled in their veins, no weapons concealed in their belts or held loosely in their hands.

They may have posed a threat to normal wolves, smaller but no less viscous. But they fell easily beneath the pack, flesh tearing beneath their teeth and claws as they screamed.

There had been… four, maybe five deer. Fenrir could taste the faint tang of copper in the back of his throat, could feel the weight of a stomach full of meat resting on him. They would find the remnants today, carry them back to camp for use for the rest of the month.

Soft footsteps, leaves crunching beneath small feet. Fenrir half cracked an eye, blinking blearily at the early morning sun streaming through the blankets racked up over the entrance to the cave.

The pup paused in her stealth mission, seeing the flash of gold directed her way.

She wavered, foot raised in the act of stepping over a sleeping man's legs, blanket pulled over his face and moving slightly with every breath.

Fenrir could see the guilt play over her face, the knowledge that no-one could leave the den by themselves not enough to dissuade her from trying to play outside anyway. He raised a hand and beckoned her over, rolling over onto his back and letting his eyes drift closed again.

She would come.

"Hi Fen," Ophelia whispered, one hand, so small, braced on his shoulder as she settled into the space between his ribs and his raised arm. He hugged her close, feeling the curse in her chest hum.

"Why are you awake little one?" Fenrir asked, keeping his voice low, feeling it rumble in his chest. She didn't answer straight away, chewing on the sleeve of the sweatshirt she wore as she tucked her knees inside it.

"I thought, last night when everyone has to say inside the den, because that's the rule," she said, pausing to look at Fenrir, to make sure he was paying attention.

Fenrir sighed, and opened his eyes fully. Ophelia was not the youngest here, was used to the ways of the pack so trying to leave was unexpected. That rankled Fenrir, a burr in his paw, a bone lodged in his teeth. He needed to know why.

"Yes that is the rule," Fenrir agreed,/ smoothing her dark hair away from her face. Her heartbeat remained strong and steady, no longer skipping in reflexive fear at his closeness.

She had a surname before she joined his pack, not that she remembered it. It nestled in Fenrir's mind like a pearl, useful for the future in case it was needed.

"I thought I heard Mama."

Fenrir's hand stilled momentarily in her hair. That was unexpected.

"Mama is sleeping little one," Fenrir said slowly, inclining his head over to the sleeping form of Penelope.

She was distinguishable from the other sleeping forms around her by the child lying on top of her, cradled in her arms as she slept sitting up, blanket draped around her shoulders. Her dark curly hair was cropped close to her skull, dark skin blending with the shadows.

"A different Mama," Ophelia said with the kind of confidence only children possessed, the surety that they were right because being wrong had never occurred to them.

"A different Mama," Fenrir repeated, mind whirling, forced fully into wakefulness.

There had been no humans near the pack last night, hidden as they were in the depths of the forest. Ophelia was young, had been with the pack since she was very young. She held no memories of her former life, the pack was all she knew.

"She sang to me," Ophelia's voice took on an almost dreamy quality as the pieces slipped into place in Fenrir's mind.

"She sang, but I can't remember it."

Fenrir relaxed minutely, eyes slipping closed in relief. She was young, maybe seven or eight, but she heard the call of Mother Moon. She was ready to run with the pack, rather than stay in the den with the pups, to feel the earth beneath her feet and draw blood with her claws and fangs rather than fight her brothers and sisters.

"Mother Moon will always provide for her children," Fenrir said, his words echoed sleepily around the cave, the rest of the pack reluctantly waking with the morning sun.

Wizards were weak. They did not hear Mother Moon, they scorned her blessings. She gave Fenrir to the pack, she tasked him with keeping them safe.

To keep them safe, he had to grow his pack. They would not have to hide in the forests much longer, they would not have to deny what they were.

The children, his children, were strong. It served several purposes to bite children.

They survived the curse better if they were young, bodies resilient enough to survive the ripping and tearing. They learnt faster, adapting to their new lives if they held no memories of the old, if they didn't resist the change when it came upon them.

It invoked terror.

For all the wizards feared his name, they did not know Fenrir's face. He could walk amongst them easily, his ragged clothes and dirty skin meaning eyes did not linger long enough to see the gold in his eyes. They whispered his name in terror, used it to scare each other, giggling in fright, casting nervous glances around the street.

They would fear him. And then they would listen.

"Fen?"

"Fenrir?"

Fenrir opened his eyes and gazed out on his pack, many golden eyes staring back.

"Mother Moon is good to us," Fenrir said, grinning, teeth bared, "She will always provide."

"Mother Moon will provide," the pack echoed back at him, the cave picking up the words as it moved higher and higher.

One new full pack member and a new child next Moon. Mother Moon was good to them.


End file.
